1. Field of the Invention
This application relates generally to the protection of electronic devices against surge events, and more specifically to the application of voltage switchable dielectric materials for circuit boards to protect surface mounted and embedded electronic components thereof against electric discharge events.
2. Description of Related Art
Electric discharge, such as electrostatic discharge (ESD), and electrical overstress (EOS) are among the leading causes of failure in electronic components and devices. The continuing trend to miniaturize electronic devices and the integration of increasingly smaller-scaled components into circuits causes an increase in ESD susceptibility problems. Consequently, these failures commonly lead to performance reduction or destruction of electronic devices due to unwanted overvoltage and/or overcurrent influence.
Various solutions have become available to protect electronic devices from ESD and EOS effects. To address ESD issues, engineers commonly use different capacitor based arrangements, Zener diodes, transient voltage suppression (TVS) diodes, multilayer varistors, Schottky diodes, and so forth. However, the aforementioned devices need to be mounted on circuit boards and, therefore, require additional space, in addition to increasing the complexity of the design. Moreover, most integrated circuits cannot be completely protected with existing ESD solutions.